Mounted Samurai

[David Kuijt]

There needs to be some logical reason to use the Yumi as opposed to the lighter bows used by all other horse archers. Better range/penetration as the expense of longer reloads?

Sure, there has to be some reason. But I'd point out that the reason doesn't have to have anything to do with tactical effectiveness. The muskets used in the Napoleonic Wars were the evolution of centuries of gunpowder warfare, and STILL weren't as effective as the longbow -- longbow had greater range, greater effective range, similar or better penetration, and vastly greater rate of fire. Yet the longbow had been abandoned by 1550ish in England, and never caught on beyond the British Isles as a weapon of war (in spite of the efforts of the Spider King to replicate its success in late 15th century France, after a century of French knights getting slaughtered by it). There are lots of reasons for the abandonment of the longbow, and none of them have anything to do with the weapons that replaced it being superior in a tactical engagement.

Making composite bows with layers of sinew, horn, and wood is a complex process that takes a long time for a trained craftsman. Without importing masses of such trained craftsmen from Mongolia, Manchuria, etc. it is hard to see how mass production of composite recurve bows could begin in Japan. And Japan was a very conservative place. It took some cultural cues from China, but China was also a very conservative place, treating external influences as suspect (at best) for many thousands of years. Given the expense, time constraints, lack of local expertise, and cultural conservatism, it would have been very surprising if composite recurve bow use had ever been adopted in Japan. There is no need to argue for any effectiveness advantage of the asymmetrical bow.

[RogerCooper]

We have discussed before the replacements of bows by guns. Here is interesting quote from a Korean official.

Joseon official Ryu Seong-ryong quoted:

In the 1592 invasion, everything was swept away. Within a fortnight or a month the cities and fortresses were lost, and everything in the eight directions had crumbled. Although it was [partly] due to there having been a century of peace and the people not being familiar with warfare that this happened, it was really because the Japanese had the use of muskets that could reach beyond several hundred paces, that always pierced what they struck, that came like the wind and the hail, and with which bows and arrows could not compare.[16]

[David Kuijt]

We have discussed before the replacements of bows by guns. Here is interesting quote from a Korean official.

Nice.

However, blaming the existence of muskets for the Japanese dominance in the field is myopic at best. Ignoring the fact that the Japanese launched the largest amphibious assault before Normandy 1944, committing nearly two hundred thousand troops that were veterans of the Sengoku period, etc. etc. Korean soldiers were disorganized, ill-trained, and ill-equipped (according to Turnbull) -- but it is the arquebus that made the difference. Sure...